Monday, May 24, 2010

LOST: A review of the Paranormal, Mythological and Spiritual Aspects

WARNING: Spoiler alert for LOST series finale beyond this point. Read at own risk!

"Previously...on LOST."

If you were like me, you may have been following last night's series finale on the critically acclaimed (and criticized) show LOST. A show that has lost signifcant viewership with every passing season pretty much because it leaves it's fans with the same feeling as the title. For me it marked a conclusion to a six year fantatical following of the adventures of the island-bound survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, the "Others" and the Dharma Initiative. It was bittersweet and of course still left me scratching my head about somethings...

Pretty much, I was both impressed and disappointed. For five seasons the show maintained the allure of a mysterious island filled with all sorts of unexplained, supernatural curiosities (70's style underground bunkers with mysterious buttons, unexplained health cures, black smoke monsters and of course...polar bears). Season 6 did explain a lot of things, we understood that LOST was willing to accept the existence of ghosts (Charlie and Michael coming back to lead Hurley like they were something out of Sixth Sense), time travel and alternate realities were also possible, but we also delved into a side that until recently, was simply the beliefs held by the all believing John Locke...faith.

LOST took an unexpected turn into mythos and the aethereal. It felt like Jacob and his evil twin brothers were something from a biblical story and we were expected to accept the existence of this "light" (the macguffin that Jacob was charged to protect) that came through the ground at the heart of the island. It wasn't the fact we COULDN'T believe it could happen on LOST it was the bizarre feeling of thinking: "Why has the island gone from being something paranormal in nature, to biblical?"

But perhaps the most shocking of the events that happened in the finale was that in the end,when all was said and done and the alternate reality (flash sideways) was nothing more then a sort of purgatory for the dead characters (which the LOST creators swore it wasn't) and all our heroes moved on to a new existence together (heaven?), we realize that the island we've come to think was so important, the island that we spent six years believing mattered...didn't. It was nothing more then a place after all, not a character unto itself and everything that happened there was just a mechanism for the characters to rediscover themselves.

But for it's many oddities, I was touched by how "The End" ended. In a lot of ways LOST touched on subjects that were close to me: the paranormal; the answer to life, death and the beyond; and the battle between science and faith and all the in betweens. Anyone studying the paranormal should consider this show a sort of theory as to what we percieve as existence and what that means to us as a people.

We are social creatures, and whether we choose to accept it or not, we are altered and changed by the events and people around us. LOST was an example of human life, changing the lives of those characters involved, all of which who were lost...and are now ultimately found.

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BIO

Andre Frattino is a published illustrator, author and storyteller. He graduated from SCAD in 2009 with a BFA in Sequential Art and in 2012 earned his MA in Art Education from the University of Florida. Andre has worked as a freelance illustrator with clients ranging from Firehouse Subs to Puppy Punch Productions to Mascot Books. He currently works with Pineapple Press, who continue to publish his paranormal graphic novel series, The Flagler's Few.